


I really really like you

by ElianB



Series: What feels right [3]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Baby Dick Grayson realizes maybe he's not straight and kind of freaks out a little bit, Dick Grayson is Robin, Gay Panic, Gen, Love Confessions, So I don't actually want to put it in the relationship tag section, Technically Dick Grayson/Original Male Character but it doesn't go anywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19405267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElianB/pseuds/ElianB
Summary: The first time Dick Grayson receives a love confession it's as Robin and it throws him for a bit of a loop.





	I really really like you

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is really simple and short but it’s also really really really self-indulgent. I almost didn’t even write it because it feels so self-indulgent and that makes me afraid that I might be letting the fic I want to write shape the characters instead of the other way around.
> 
> That little warning out of the way, I’m writing ‘40s Dick and Bruce. Only assume they're displaced into a more modern time period because I have no desire to actually write the ‘40s and also assume there is not and has never been any of the murder of criminals via drop kicking them off of high places that we get happening left and right in the really early comics because I have a pretty strong feeling that that behavior doesn’t stick around. I’m not sure how different ‘40s Dick and Bruce are from the later iterations of themselves during their ‘Batman and Robin’ dynamic because I’ve literally only read Batman comics from the ‘40s. So. That’s what you’re getting here. Also, Dick is like, 12 or 13-ish in this fic. So he’s a baby, but not a baby-baby.
> 
> Lastly, just as a side-note because it doesn’t particularly apply to this fic and there’s no guarantee I’ll be writing future fics for this fandom: my Dick Grayson is non-binary. At the point in time this fic takes place in he doesn’t know it yet, but if I do write any future fics, that may be more relevant. I talk more about this in my end note because there actually is one small part of this fic that reflects this.

The night had been quiet – excepting the usual ambient noise you just couldn’t escape in a city no matter the time of the day – when Dick heard the shout of “Robin!”

It didn’t sound distressed, more like a hopeful grab for attention, but Dick was still quick to stop his rooftop hopping and survey the situation, Bruce stopping not far from him. Dick was a few buildings further down the road than Bruce, the night’s lack of excitement leading him to finding his own entertainment in speeding ahead across the rooftops, pulling off flips and tricks with as much finesse as he could manage. After one particularly difficult stunt he’d even turned back to Bruce and bowed with a flourish, delighted when the sound of slow clapping and a “Well done” had met his ears.

Now, though, Dick was more than willing to redirect his attention from playing to… what appeared to be a group of kids about his age on the sidewalk across the street. There were four of them. One had a hand clamped desperately over the mouth of another, the kid Dick assumed must have called out to him, who was now waving wildly at him. The other two, seeming to notice that they’d actually managed to get Dick’s attention, also waved at him, though in a much more subdued manner than the Attention-Grabber.

Dick waved back, bemused, his head tilting a bit to the side. He was used to people trying to get his attention, talk to him, shake his hand, take a picture – at least, as long as Bruce wasn’t around, making an imposing Bat-shaped figure in the distance – but whatever was going on down _there_ was something special.

The faint sound of Bruce’s boots touching down alerted Dick to his presence on his rooftop. He waited until the footsteps got close before suggesting, “A catcaller?” As far as he could tell nothing was actually _wrong_ with any of the kids, other than the fact that one of them seemed to be trying really hard to suffocate the other, but Dick was pretty positive that _wasn’t_ what the Attention-Grabber was trying to get his attention for.

Bruce hummed. “Possibly. Did you want to check it out to be safe?” Dick glanced up at Bruce, catching the amused smile on his mouth as he continued, “Lecture them on the importance of not distracting busy vigilantes?”

Dick felt a blush flare up, bright and hot, in tips of his ears at the reminder of last week’s capital-F _Fiasco_. “That conversation needed to happen and you know it,” he said, defensively.

Bruce hadn’t actually been there for the situation, but he’d heard enough, both from Dick, himself, and from finding out about it second-hand because, apparently, news of Robin’s “adorably serious” berating of two elementary school children got around fast. Unlike Dick, however, the gossip mill had conveniently forgone the fact that the children had been chasing after him while he’d been in pursuit of a criminal and had nearly gotten themselves shot – very important facts, the omission of which Dick had already ranted in length to Bruce about – in favor of focusing on how apparently “adorable” of a sight Dick had made.

And sure, there had been pacing, there had been wild gesticulating, there had been requests to know where the kids’ parents had been and why they were out so late in the first place, and maybe all that was a little absurd coming from a kid not much older than the children being lectured, but Dick felt like his being a pretty well-established vigilante should have made up for his age in that situation.

By the end of the lecture, still blissfully oblivious to the embarrassing story that would spawn out of it, Dick had felt like one hell of a killjoy, but he just could _not_ have little elementary schoolers chasing after him while he was in pursuit of criminals. He’d made the kids promise to never do it again, taken them out for ice cream, and then walked them home.

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed about what he’d _done_ , really. He’d do it again for sure. His issue was with the public’s response and Bruce teasing him about said response. He literally could not _wait_ for the next ridiculous fluff piece to come out and make his story old news.

Bruce didn’t even have the decency to look properly apologetic for his teasing as he ruffled Dick’s hair, saying, “I know.” He turned back to the group of kids across the street. “Do you want to talk to them? I can check out the rest of the block and then circle back around for you. Or would you like me to handle it?”

“Nah, I’ve got it,” Dick replied. He took a few steps back, then charged forward, making a running leap off the edge of the roof, turning back to Bruce to stick out his tongue and say, “You’d just traumatize them!” as he shot out a grapple line and swung to the ground a few feet away from the group of kids.

The kids froze for a moment after he landed before them, staring at him, wide-eyed.

Dick retracted the grapple, getting out nothing more than a, “Hey,” before the kids were clamoring chaotically again, all but one of them visibly ecstatic at his appearance. The Outlier, a short boy with brown skin, dark hair, and darker eyes, had stopped trying to suffocate his friend, a brown girl with a ponytail that Dick was pretty sure was tied with a Batman scrunchie and a wide, triumphant smile stretching across her face.

Interesting.

Dick wondered if maybe they’d been placing bets on whether or not he’d come down. It’d be a little annoying, but it’s not like anything else had been going on tonight, so he could forgive it.

“Did you guys need anything?” Dick asked, his voice cutting over their chatter. “It’s kind of late to be out wandering, don’t you think?”

The girl scoffed. “We’re old enough to be out on the weekends. And, besides, when else would we have a shot at finding you?”

Dick raised his eyebrows. The last thing he wanted was to make Bruce’s night by actually lecturing these kids, but… “Okay, you’ve got me, what’s up?” He placed his hands on his hips, looking the kids over.

Three pairs of eyes shot towards the Outlier who was looking like a deer caught in headlights.

Huh.

So the one who wanted him there the least was the reason they’d got him to come down.

Plot twist.

“Come _on_ , Luis,” the Attention-Grabber said, shoving lightly at the Outlier’s – Luis’s – arm. “You said you’d do it if we found him and we did so you have to!”

One of the other two kids tossed in her agreement with the Attention-Grabber while the last of the kids just kind of giggled at the proceedings.

It took a bit more cajoling, but eventually Luis grumbled, “Okay, fine,” while pointedly not looking in Dick’s direction.

Dick scanned the rooftops, but there was no sign of Bruce circling back yet, so he dropped his attention back to whatever was going on in front of him,

“Can you guys give me some privacy first?” Luis snuck a glance at Dick, realized Dick was watching him, and quickly whipped his gaze back around to his friends.

Luis was so oddly nervous that it was beginning to make Dick a bit antsy. There was obviously something he was missing. After Luis’s friends had walked a couple feet away, Dick moved a little closer to him, giving him what he thought was a friendly, encouraging smile when Luis glanced up at him, but for some reason it just seemed to make Luis more nervous.

“Right, um,” Luis’s eyes fluttered around, never really settling on Dick for more than a second, and the fingers of one of his hands dug into his hair, pulling at the curls, “I just- I really admire you.” The words practically tripped over each other on the way out of his mouth. “And, um, I like you. A lot.” His hand curled tightly in his hair as he finally forced himself to meet Dick’s gaze – at least as best he could with Dick’s eyes being hidden by his domino. There was an undeniable weight to the words as he said, “I really, _really_ like you.”

Dick had been told the same sort of thing before but… Gee, talk about heart-felt. This kid sure knew how to make a guy feel special.

“Oh,” Dick said, feeling a bit at a loss. “Thank you.” The words didn’t feel like nearly enough, but he wasn’t sure what else he could possibly say. He smiled at Luis, genuinely flattered, but something must have been wrong because Luis seemed to deflate a little right in front of Dick’s eyes.

“Yeah, you’re, uh, you’re welcome.” Luis’s gaze fell to the ground and he pressed his lips together, his hand slipping from his hair and falling to his side. He shifted his weight, then seemed to make a decision, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper. He held it out to Dick.

Dick looked at it, Luis, then back at the paper.

As he took it, Luis said, “That should clear some stuff up. I think,” and trailing off into a murmur, “I hope.” He sighed and smiled a little, soft and sad. Dick felt rooted to the spot in the wake of that smile. “Thanks for coming down. And letting me tell you that. I know you’re probably busy and all.”

“No,” Dick said before he could even think about it, shaking his head, “no, it’s fine. You caught us on a slow night so... It’s fine.”

“Still, thanks, Robin.”

With that, Luis ran off, falling back in with his friends, the group of them all setting off together – towards home, Dick hoped, he’d been serious when he’d asked them what they were doing out so late. Luis’s friends shoved at him playfully, ruffled his hair, their chatter chaotic, but not loud enough that Dick could pick up on it from where he was standing.

Luis glanced back at him one last time and Dick waved at him, smiling brightly, feeling hopelessly perplexed when all he got in return was a bitten lip and Luis quickly whipping his gaze away from him.

Yeah, he was missing something.

Dick hummed, then glanced down at the piece of paper in his hands, flipping it over to look at the back, then righting it again. It didn’t look immediately menacing – nothing really special about it at all, just a lined sheet of paper ripped from a notebook – so, with a glance around, he moved to stand under one of the streetlamps. The light was dismal, buzzing angrily above him along with a frankly disgusting number of moths, but it was enough to read by so he leaned back against the pole and unfolded the page.

The note was short. Or, maybe ‘note’ was the wrong word for it.

Dick read it once, twice, jerked his head up, wide-eyed, to look down the road in the direction Luis had gone only to see nothing more than an empty street stretching out before him, then quickly looked back down, at a loss, and read the note, or letter, or- a third time. His pulse was thundering, a hot blush stealing its way across his cheeks, as he realized he maybe, definitely, _absolutely_ had misunderstood what Luis had meant when he said he ‘liked’ him.

“Oh, _boy_ ,” Dick whispered. He folded the letter back up and pressed it to his chest, trying to will his heartbeat back to a normal speed.

The letter was an amalgamation of compliments, which by themselves would have been more than enough to leave Dick adequately embarrassed, but then the last line came in and hit Dick like a truck: _I don’t know if you like boys, but I hope you can at least accept my feelings_.

The letter was signed with a heart.

Dick swore he was blushing so hard it was a miracle his skin wasn’t melting from the heat of it.

His first ever confession.

Not only that, but his first ever confession and he hadn’t even realized it’d _been_ a confession

Worse still, all he’d said in reply was ‘thank you.’

Dick groaned, banging his head back against the lamppost. He wanted to ground to swallow him whole.

And on top of all that, it’d been a confession from a _boy_. And that was fine, totally fine – fine except for the fact that it was a lot more _fine_ than Dick thought it maybe should be and that... that scared him. It scared him how much he wanted another look at Luis. Another chance to stare into his pretty, dark eyes, while he told him he _liked_ him, only this time Dick would actually know what he meant and could appreciate it properly. Another chance to see his nervous ticks and understand them as something sweet and endearing and all because of the _crush_ he apparently had on Robin – on _him_.

It scared Dick because he _liked_ it. He _liked_ that a boy liked him.

It was thrilling and exhilarating and completely and utterly terrifying.

He wondered for a brief, wild moment if maybe Luis and his friends had somehow mistakenly assumed Robin was a girl – a thought that set off a whole other confusing rush of embarrassment and pleasure and terror – but he dismissed it just as quickly as it’d crossed his mind. The Attention-Grabber had definitely referred to him as a ‘he.’ There was no misunderstanding. Luis really did _like_ him.

Dick closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, letting it out slowly. He did this a few times, calming himself, then opened his eyes and jolted when he spotted Bruce standing on one of the nearby rooftops.

Dick hurriedly stuffed the letter into his vest’s inside breast pocket, the realization that this placed it directly over his heart hitting him with another wave of embarrassment, but he tried his best to push aside as he grappled up to the rooftop to meet up with Bruce.

Evidently, he hadn’t done well enough because he’d barely touched down before Bruce was asking, “What’s wrong?”

In what Dick felt was an unfortunate echo of Luis and himself earlier, _Dick_ was now the one staring at a vigilante like a deer caught in headlights, his body frozen stiff.

“Did something happen?” Bruce pressed when Dick didn’t immediately answer. The shades of the cowl kept Bruce’s eyes hidden, but it was easy enough for Dick to pick out the concern in the twist of his lips and the tension in his body.

Dick licked his lips, weighing his options.

He could tell Bruce it was nothing and suffer through him subtly hovering for the rest of the night. Or he could tell Bruce and... and who _knew_ what would happen then. He didn't think anything bad would come of it, but faced with the prospect of actually talking about it – about something he wasn't even sure how he felt about himself – it was hard to be certain of that.

In the end, after a few minutes of internal debate, repeatedly rocking up onto the balls of his feet and falling back down, Bruce waiting patiently for him to speak, Dick decided to trust Bruce and hoped that maybe talking about the situation would clear up his feelings on it.

“One of them confessed to me,” Dick said, clasping his hands behind his back to hide his fingers' nervous fiddling. "And gave me a love letter.” Because that's definitely what it was: a _love_ letter. “That was what they wanted me for.”

“Well, aren't you popular," Bruce said, most of the tension seeping from his body as he realized nothing particularly dire had occurred. However, he still seemed concerned as he asked, “Did it bother you?”

Dick stared very intently at the ground. “No,” he said, slowly. “No, it didn't bother me.” Softly, he added, “I liked it.”

“But?” Bruce's voice was soft and coaxing, the same sort it tone he'd use on scared little kids. Dick was both annoyed by it and appreciated it.

“They were a boy,” Dick said, his stomach swooping as the word 'boy' fell from his lips. He clenched his hands tightly behind his back.

“Oh,” Bruce said with dawning understanding. “I see.”

Dick wanted to look up at him, but he didn't dare.

“Well," Bruce began, faux-casual, “nothing wrong with having a crush on a boy or liking it when a boy has a crush on _you_. I’ve been in both positions quite a few times before myself, actually.”

Dick looked up at Bruce so quickly it was honestly surprising he didn’t give himself whiplash. “You have!?”

Bruce was smiling at Dick, all amused and fond. “Yes, I have.” He then leaned back, looking Dick over. “Now, where is this love letter? I feel like I ought to look it over.”

“Wh-” Dick's hand flew, protectively, to his hidden breast pocket. “No!”

“No?” Bruce's eyes zeroed in on Dick's hand. “You know, that just makes me more curious.”

Bruce took a step towards him, but Dick was already darting towards the next roof, laughing as he called back, “You're not allowed!”

Their chase eventually came to an end, the excitement of the night picking up, demanding their focus elsewhere. Bruce didn't bring it up the confession or the love letter again, though he did pet Dick's hair comfortingly during their ride home in the Batmobile. Dick took it as the reassurance it was and smiled at him, still nervous about the whole thing, but comfortable in the fact that it was _okay_.

In his room afterwards, dressed down in a pair of especially soft pajamas, Dick tucked the love letter away in one of his desk drawers. He'd find a better place for it later, but for now the drawer was fine. All that mattered was he didn't want to lose it.

He shut the drawer, patting it, a small, giddy smile on his lips. He felt happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Dick ends up finding a cute, lockable wooden box with a glass heart window inlayed in the top while out shopping one day and that becomes his place for storing things like his love letter.
> 
> I’m non-binary, but Dick’s experience would be the reverse of mine: where I’m afab and present mostly masculine, Dick is amab and I headcanon him as presenting more feminine when he gets older. That’s why I have him react the way he does to the thought of being mistaken for a girl. 1. Femininity is something he’s going to strive for later and likely already emulates to some degree and 2. In my own personal experience (seeing as I strive to present in a way that opposes my assigned gender) there’s a bit of a thrill/rush in the thought of being mistaken for the other binary gender, people would still be wrong, but it would mean I’m not doomed to forever just automatically be assumed the gender I was assigned at birth and I projected that sentiment onto Dick. There are other specifics I have regarding Dick’s gender expression and experience, but those notes aren’t really relevant to this fic so. Maybe they’ll see the light of day in the future.
> 
> I guess other than that, this fic opens up the beginning of Dick questioning his sexuality without resolution on the matter, so, if you’re curious, he would later id as bi. Again, something that will probably matter more if I write fics in the future.


End file.
